It goes beyond disrespect. It is more than an insult to police officers. The new mayor’s appointment of Brenda Konkel to the Public Safety Review Committee is an outright assault on public safety.
This blog broke that story yesterday morning (07-15-19). New mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway could not signal her hostility toward law enforcement any more forcefully.
Former alder Konkel is so reflexively anti-cop that the police officers union actually put up a billboard to defeat her for re-election 10 years ago. She hated police then, she hates them now.
The folks behind “We Stand With The Madison Police Department” compiled this rap sheet on Brenda Konkel:
- Tried to pass an ordinance allowing homeless people to literally crap on our streets.
- Publicly ridiculed a Madison neighborhood police officer with obscene and offensive content for running a crafting program for disadvantaged neighborhood youth and then when called out for her offensive behavior, fired back that the police were “censoring her.”
- Stalked and harassed a Madison police officer who was cleared through due process by the Dane County DA and the Obama/Holder Department of Justice.
Blaska would add:
- Advertised for someone, anyone, to file a complaint against Police Chief Mike Koval before the Police & Fire Commission.
- Lodged an ethics complaint against school board president Gloria Reyes alleging conflict of interest in an attempt to nullify the school board’s 4-3 vote to retain police in our troubled high schools.
- Sided with Freedom Inc., International Socialists, Black Lives Matter, and the Royko-Maurer Community Response Team to Derail the Jail.
- Supported the squatters who befouled the porch of the City-County Building for months on end.
- Fights any and all budget increases for MPD.
- Founding member of the coalition to evict school resource officers.
We said Madison was too liberal for Paul Soglin. The chickens have not only come home to roost, they are pooping all over police. Consider that Satya-Rhodes appointed another police critic, Greg Gelembiuk, to the Madison Police Department Policy and Procedure Review Ad Hoc Committee. That committee is proposing a police review commission stacked with felons, squatters, illegal aliens, and addicts. (Related here.)
Law enforcement is racist
Who did the new mayor appoint as her deputy mayor for law enforcement? Yes, a former MPD captain. But not just any police captain. After leaving MPD, Cameron McLay was hired as Pittsburgh’s police chief in 2014. Two years later, he was forced to stepped down after a no-confidence vote by his officers. For one thing, he appeared at the Democratic National Convention while in uniform. More egregiously, he accused his own men and women in blue of racism most foul.
“The chief is calling us racists,” union president Howard McQuillan said at the time. “He believes the Pittsburgh Police Department is racist.” (Story here)
Anyone who plays the Race Card is A-O.K. with Mayor Satya!
The irony is thick with this one
The “We Stand” people note this irony:
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway tells Madison PD to crack down on vagrant behavior on State Street, then nominates Brenda Konkel to the Public Safety Review Committee.
Konkel is a dyed-in-the-wool cop-hater, who has shown repeatedly she has ZERO ability to be impartial in regards to matters of public safety. Someone who openly MOCKS and ATTACKS individual police officers engaged in community policing is unfit to serve in this position.
Who should be appointed to Public Safety is someone like Paula Fitzsimmons. She tells Blaska Policy Werkes:
Look at the cop haters. Say what you want about them, but they’re organized and tenacious and united.
Am I angry? Yes, because I know what’s ahead – but most of all I’m angry because I know some of this could have been allayed had more gotten involved when we had the chance. It doesn’t help that our PD has a union that seemingly sits back and takes it, and cops who are too tired or scared to fight back. …
I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw an even bigger exodus of cops in the coming years. Keep in mind that a weakened police department means we’re all less safe.
New York City sounds like Madison
Maybe Cam McLay will grace the national Democrat(ic) convention in Milwaukee next summer. Perhaps he could put into nomination the name of Bill diBlasio, mayor of New York City. From the Wall Street Journal: “Disorder Rises in de Blasio’s New York: Graffiti and petty crime are rampant again, as the mayor denies the justice system’s legitimacy.”
[diBlasio] propagates the smear that the majority-minority NYPD unjustifiably targets minorities when conducting street investigations. He knows there is nothing racially proportionate about reported violent crimes in the city, which in the busiest precincts affect only minorities. His posturing and gamesmanship provide fuel for the worst kind of conspiracy theories and hate speech against officers. Never has a mayor been more disdained by his police.
His factionalist, unserious approach to public safety might have paved the way for the ascent into the Queens district attorney’s office of a defense lawyer, Tiffany Cabán, who insists that the cause of crime and disorder in the city is the criminal-justice system. Her 20-point platform did not mention victims, violence, community decay, punishment or even guns. Instead, she vowed to keep as many offenders as possible free — even some of the most serious recidivists.
There are exceptions: she pledges to prosecute landlords who fail to provide heat, business owners who don’t pay employees — and cops.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Will the WI State Journal bestir itself to speak out editorially or will it just go along for the slide to the bottom? Some courage is required here. Who’s got it?
Blaska Policy Werkes 
23 responses to “Brenda Konkel is a slap in the face”
Madison Mayor greases the chute to the bottom! Wheeeeee…….
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Courage? Hard to be found, Blaska. You’re one of the very few.
Expressing keyboard warfare at fleeting news stories? Dime a dozen. Getting people to show up to Council meetings and write letters and speak out and get involved and out of their comfort zones? Not so simple.
During the three years I advocated for MPD it was always different variations of the same themes: I’m busy. I don’t think speaking out will make a difference (WE PROVED THEM WRONG!). I don’t want to get involved.
Fine, your choice. But now look where we’re at.
And those who smugly point fingers at Madison: this insanity is not isolated and is indeed spreading. And if people with good sense are not willing to speak out, they will eventually face some of what we’re facing in Madison.
Like I said, say what you want about the cop haters, but they ARE organized and tenacious and united.
Harsh words? Perhaps. I’m told it’s best to keep things positive, but considering the circumstance, I think my words are quite fitting.
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Steve, that’s precisely what I did for the past three years.
http://supportmadisonpolice.com/
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Apathy is a HUGE problem. It’s why we’re at where we’re at. I will check out the link, thanks.
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The noise now must come from the cops themselves. Staying quiet in the background and letting Chief Koval absorb all the mess is NOT going to help them. All it does is cement their position as a department that can be walked on.
If I was a cop, I’d be seriously questioning why the hell I’m paying dues to a union who sits there and takes it. This union is worthless, in my opinion.
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That “noise” should come in the form of a wildcat strike by police that ends only when the farcical Police Policy and Procedures Committee is abolished. (And for good measure, Madison firefighters should join in to show their solidarity.) Let the cop haters in city government live their wet dream–a world without cops–and let’s see how long they can run this town.
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Doubt that will happen. Most everybody in this city, except for the cop haters (who have been emboldened) and people like Blaska, is either scared shitless or doesn’t care. Believe me, I advocated for this department for three years, and saw this up close.
The cops are also scared, but to be fair, they’re also exhausted. And I *suspect* there are a few in the ranks who are quite far left themselves, and who may actually welcome all of this.
I feel just awful for this department, and sit here feeling quite powerless.
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Good point. To some degree the Lefty police are complicit.
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Madisonexpat: I don’t care which way police officers lean politically on their own time. They have a right to exercise their rights just as we do, provided those rights don’t interfere with their job, and consequently public safety.
Don’t mistake what I just wrote with “We have lefty police.” That’s not what I said. What I said was that I *suspect* that SOME cops hold far left ideals and *may* be pleased with these recent turn of events.
That doesn’t mean the entire PD is like that. We have an excellent police force with an exceptional chief! The best in the nation! The War on Cops that started in 2014 and has shown no signs of letting up, has indeed taken its toll on morale.
Cops are keeping silent not just in Madison, but in cities throughout the country, including in conservative-leaning ones.
So while law enforcement around the nation generally remains silent amid the attacks, I believe it has more to do with feeling a lack of support from the public, unions, media, politicians, and such, then it does with one’s political leanings.
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A long post, how could it NOT be…. So many clueless SJW’s to call out, so many links tying hypocrisy to their actions, not to mention enlisting aid/judgement via recidivists, losers and grudge-holders. Such a huge and threatening committee/concept, and just when we need our police to tamp down rising violent crime in MadTown. Thanks for the Cam McLay story/review -And the Common Council link. And Yes, Paula would be an honest and valuable committee member, would that that could somehow happen.
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I moved back WI (was born and raised Up North, gone nearly 30 years East and West Coast) to live in Madison from fall 2016 until just a week ago. I’m far away out West on an island in WA where the police report is two items long and 99% not even about a shoplifting offense. Think teenagers skateboarding. You know, actual teenagers in Hugh school and not wearing police-fitted ankle GPS tracking devices so they don’t steal another Subaru and ram it into another mother with small kids in a minivan.
In those three years in Dane County I all too clearly saw that 1970s-80s Badger State working class, family-first, common sense ‘liberalism’ had morphed into a hysterical self-hatred that virtually worshipped all things not traditionally Wisconsin, anything that defecated on the values, shed blood and decades of sweat of our 99.9% Judeo-Christian grandparents, and fully embraced cognitive dissonance when facts and news stories and police reports contradicted the People’s Republic of Madison intelligencia Obama-era talking points.
For three years I lived downtown on West Wilson and then on East Mifflin… For three years I saw and heard all of it- the drug deals, the police releasing K-9 units, the FD “saving” another lifetime wastoid junkie from the inevitable,l. I had countless drugged up non-native “change beggars” talk sh$t and swing on me when rebuffed, with MPD watching and not able to arrest an attacker because I wasn’t actually hit. I watched dozens of stolen cars full of those“teens” doing 80 down East Wash. Over and over I read about the stabbings or shootings within blocks of my too expensive apartment, and I’d witnesses the just new normal intra-homeless beat downs. Spring through fall I jogged nightly passed the 40-50 dope smoking transients infesting the Capitol grass areas waiting on the Free Shit Shuttle. And I also heard the homeless junkies pushing strollers full of wailing, doomed from birth toddlers on their government provided iPhones telling their Chicago cousins to come on up to the Zero Prosecution isthmus… and finally, i was beyond angry and bitter. I was f-ing DONE.
All those names I was called for pointing out “Hate Facts”… for trying to warn that hey- I’d seen alllll this before. Elsewhere. Portland. Seattle. And that what Madison was doing was 100% utterly and entirely documentedly F-ing WRONG.
Over and over and over the Dane County Liberal Lifers response to my pointing out the clear as f-ing-day things that were actually happening was to call me names that ended in “-ist”. Stop asking me to BBQ. Not wave when I passed them on the street. Well guess what? Those names didn’t and don’t mean anything anymore! Those tired MSNBC talking points aren’t stopping the infestation of gang bangers or the related heinous outcomes- heroin, prostitution, random violence on strangers, assaults on college women, sexual attacks of all kinds, let alone the gunshots on goddamn State Street!
See, I lived and worked in Washington DC- I rode the metro to hellhole that is SW DC. And I lived through this alll before inliberal as hell and so-much-richer, so-much-smarter-by-miles-than-Madison, WI, Seattle doing the same stupid sh$t 2013-2016 regarding “the homeless”. Go google “Seattle is Dying” for a preview of Madison’s future… (spoiler alert : gets WAY, WAY WORSE very fast)
Yeah this is a rant. Its cathartic sitting here on a beautiful, small town island in WA where the ferry horn has replaced the Madison soundtrack of thumping rap music, police sirens, and screamed unintelligible profanity by the endless non-native Wisconsite foot traffic between the downtown YMCA and the Salvation Army off E Wash.
You’re doomed. And I am very, very regretful for that. I love WI… but I couldn’t stay for any amount of money. Besides, they’re just going on o take it in property taxes anyway! Don’t you get it?!? This has all happened elsewhere- Portland, San Fran, DC, Baltimore, Chicago, LA, Seattle. The playbook is worn out from Democratic-led local gov use! And I was an active Dem for 35 years! I worked for Dem presidential candidate in NC! Never, ever, ever again will I accept that tripe.
Go visit those cities and tell me how Madison- small, fourth-rate identity politician led, fishbowl Madison – is going to use the same logic, the same guilt, the same approach, the same Social Justice Warrior dogma and somehow realize any even marginally different outcome!
But all you Maddow lifer Leftists (of which I was once was, btw) will never let facts and what actually happens to your less “woke” coworkers or neighbors’ get in the way of that magical “Neo-Progressive” lbelief system. Just curious- how many kids need to be trafficked, cars stolen, and downtown shootings or rapes need to happen before any of you admit this isn’t working? Is that number greater than zero, because if so you’ll cross that threshold momentarily.
So yeah. I took that passive aggressive / a$$hole advice that if I didn’t like that I should move. I did. And I have zero regrets and zero Fs to give about the idiots that will never, ever, ever see what is right in front of them. I do however weep for their children… and the future of my beautiful bIrth state WI. You’re now going to be a suburb of the worst of the ghetto Chicago. And you could’ve stopped it from happening.
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Nailed it Corey! I’ve never read a better description of how liberally applied liberalism can affect (infect) an individual and their community. Would you object to my reposting your comment?
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Go ahead. I hadn’t intended for my real name to be used but cest la vie. I was a registered Dem for so long… Wild thing is reading today’s Seattle Times, all the stuff that Madison is doing is just suicidal. The borders of the world extend far beyond Dane County. Perhaps the major would benefit from coming to Portland or Seattle and seeing what the “party atmosphere” is like after legalizing small heroin possession.
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Corey, well stated from an interesting perspective. I think this downward spiral in Lefty cities requires a large university nearby. After 40 years of deconstructing Western Civilization and flushing logic, self awareness and critical thinking down the Somalia, we are left with Far Left collectivism
and a hatred of our country, our history, our authority figures, This really can’t survive far from major universities. The radicalization of the faculties is manifest.
But Karma cometh. Many of the universities and colleges have soaked up unsustainable levels of cash and barely get by due to the many foreign students paying full boat. Retirees pension obligations are staggering. (The president of Michigan State who watched the Larry Nassar debale/predation over the years was taking down $750K per year and turned down a $100K raise as her doom approached.) Oberlin was dinged for $40M.
They are launching their entitled, sensitive debt laden cultural warriors into the death of political correctness.
Now starts their real education.
I too have lived in Chicago, Milwaukee, San Fran etc. And you’re right to say it happens fast.
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You just did a really fine job of summarizing what many of us here have been saying for many months Mr. Brunke. Thank you for taking the time and glad to hear life is good for you. (canwestillusethewordMr.)
The vast majority of Madisonians continue to vote their own demise either out of naivety, ignorance, stubbornness, or blind intractable idealism and there is no sign the scales will tip the opposite direction any time soon.
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I didn’t read your entire comment, but we need people who love WI to stay here and make changes, not bail and move. Especially former liberals turned independent (we are that too). Sorry, had to say it. Where are you living now?
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Blaska, the slide down to the bottom is much worse than we can possibly imagine…then, it will get better (maybe)
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Yes, it must get worse before it can get better. The only question is how much worse.
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Last paragraph from a short Walter Williams article on America’s cultural transformation.
His logical dismantling of “gun violence” is superb.
A society’s first line of defense is not the law or the criminal justice system but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms, mostly imparted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. Police and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Today’s true tragedy is that most people think what we see today has always been so.
As such, today’s Americans accept behavior that our parents and grandparents never would have accepted.
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams071719.php3#hlmJfeC1Cz2hoywx.03
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“As such, today’s Americans accept behavior that our parents and grandparents never would have accepted.”.
How true in many areas of society today.
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[…] mayor.”) The mayor is Progressive Dane! Brenda Konkel’s party! (And you’re surprised the mayor appointed her to the Public Safety Review Committee?) Her campaign treasurer was Ald. Rebecca Kemble! Cops Out of […]
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[…] If an internal name were to be forwarded to the mayor by the Police & Fire Commission one we have heard is Paige Valenta, assistant chief of operations. But she is described as “tough.” That’s a disqualification in this own. Our guess is the progressives who run Madison go outside the department for someone like former Pittsburgh police chief Cameron McLay, who accused his own force of racism. McLay is now Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway’s deputy mayor for law enforcement. (More here.) […]
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